Every Thursday night at my college we have a night of worship where we gather in a recital hall and there is a student-led worship session and normally I just tune everything out and focus my mind on the Lord and just get into what the lyrics are saying, but this week was very different. It was one of the most intense times with the Lord I have ever experienced. As I listened to the lyrics, I couldn’t help raising my arms to the sky and reaching for my God every chance I got.
The speaker of the night got up on stage about half way through and spoke on our Christian lives and how God is so good and loving and forgiving and that in Him, we have EVERYTHING and NOTHING is left for question. It spoke right to my soul as the speaker passionately described God’s intense and incredible love for us. It never fails, I am shocked every time I realize that God forgives me for my mistakes that I make everyday. It shocks me when I remember that He says Shelbie, Child, I know that hurt so badly and I know how much you just want to lie there and give up, but child, get up and take another step towards me because I want you to be with me and I want you to rely on me so that I can give you my goodness forever. This is absolutely incredible to me! And I fell to my knees part way through the second half of the worship begging God to break me apart. I begged Him to break my heart for the things that break His and to show me what it means to truly love the least of these. I asked for Him to just open my arms to His children and open my mind for what changes He has in store for me.
And God, unfailingly, answered my prayers! Shocker, right?
Tonight was life changing.
I went to Springfield with some friends tonight without knowing what we would be doing besides looking at Christmas lights. We saw the lights and then ended up at a coffee shop. We got coffee and then drove around for a while deciding what to do. After a long time of fooling around, we ended up grabbing McDonald’s before heading back to campus. At McDonald’s, while we were waiting in the drive thru to get our food, we notice a homeless man sitting across the parking lot and decide that we HAVE to buy him dinner. We went back around the drive thru of McDonald’s and ordered a couple sandwiches and a large drink and drove over to him.
We pulled up and asked him if he wanted dinner and he meekly says “sure”. We hand him the food and he asks “do you pray each night?” in which my friend answers “Yes sir, I do.” The man responds with this: “Will you pray for the Marines? Just the marines. Bring them home. Please.” and we told him we would and then we drove away.
This small encounter was enough to completely shake my world. A man who is sitting in a parking lot, with just a backpack of possessions and nothing else, is asking us to pray for the Marines.. This man doesn’t even care that it’s like 20 degrees out tonight and he is sitting in a parking lot, he is worried about the Marines. He is worried not about himself, but about others. It was incredible to have this experience with someone so selfless in today’s culture. I looked him in the eyes before we drove away and all I could think in my mind was Abba, Father! I have learned, tonight, a little of what the Lord sees. He looks at us and sees beauty and love. I looked at this man tonight, and I saw beauty and I felt love like never before, and that is because my heart had become completely broken for the Lord and I couldn’t be happier.
If this is even a tiny preview of how the 9 months on the Race are going to be, I am ready to leave tomorrow! Praise Jesus for His weird timing and even weirder ways of making things happen.
Thank you, Jesus. I pray for all of the readers that they find themselves on their knees for the sake of you. I pray that you brake their hearts in the most intense way and that you show yourself to them in such an incredible way that they have no choice but to be radically changed forever. I love you Lord.
-Your child
